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7/31/2011

The classic amigurumis arms or legs are either sewn on or crocheted to the body (like my trolls or critters). Some dolls even have arms or legs that are part of the body (like my fairies or human like dolls).But then you find a pattern for a doll and find that you would like to have this doll with movable arms or legs so you can pose your doll; Barney is a doll that's been designed with arms and legs that are movable.

Today I want to show you how to use classic bear joints for your amigurumi dolls and I want to show you how to create a neat alternative in case you don't want to use classic joints (maybe you can't find them or they don't fit)

Classic bear joints are most often three- or sometimes four-piece joints. They can contain disks and washers and wobble pins or nut and bolts, some joints resemble classic safety eyes:

you could even use safety eyes as joints

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now, how do you install them? the standard method would be to place one part of the joint inside your dolls body and the matching part into the arm or leg:

1 - crochet all legs and arms before crocheting the body2 - don't stuff just yet3 - add one part of the joint to the e.g. leg: place one disk/disk with shank inside the leg, position it at the inside of the leg, add the washer and bolt resp. washer and wobble pin by pushing the pin or bolt through your material4 - stuff5 - close leg (maybe crochet the last row and bind off)

The alternative to this classic joints would be what I would call "button-joints". Sometimes classic joints are really hard to find or (which I found to be a problem) they just don't fit through two layers of crocheted fabric. Another reason to search for an alternative would be the size of the classic joints would be either too small or too big for your dolls arms or legs.The "button joint" can be easily adapted to solve any of this problems. Pick smaller buttons to fit small arms/legs, you can find buttons everywhere (I like to use those blouse-buttons that I would keep in case I would ever need them again, but of couse never did) and since you're using yarn to built the joint you can use it for the thickest fabrics as well.

what you need and what the button joint will look like:

buttons (find some that fit into arms and legs easily, you can choose bigger ones for the body) and yarn or other tear-proof thread like fishing line.

how to do it:

1 - prepare your buttons: cut yarn or fishing line to pieces of about 10"/25cm and pull them through your buttons as pictured2 - pull the fishing line/yarn ends through one layer of your leg/arm, be careful to position at the inner side of each arm/leg, so you don't accidentally will receive arms or legs that face the wrong way3 - stuff4 - finish leg or arm (crochet last round and bind off, hide yarn ends)

5 - now find the position on your dolls body where the arms/ legs will be attached6 - pull the fishing line/yarn ends which are coming from the inside of an arm or leg through an hole in your bodys fabric7 - push a button over the yarn/fishing line ends (space them evenly) 8 - tie knot (fix with a drop of glue if you like to make it extra secure)

Again it's very helpful to crochet the arms/legs before you start the body, this way you can add the prepared arms and legs when needed and stuff and finish the body afterwards.

I like this method very much and will use it again on other dolls. I also was very surprised that the button-joint was a lot less wonky than I had expected.

7/23/2011

I always liked the idea of these cute felt wine racks that hold 6 bottles but found their price a little too much when I believed it was an easy craft project. And since I'm cooking risottos and soups that require wine like crazy lately I use up quite a lot of white wine (I don't drink any so I never felt the need for a wine rack before, but now I can see a use for it, at least for a small one)

and as it turns out the project was an easy one:

what you needthick felt, paper for a pattern, a ruler, a cutter and chalk to transfer the pattern, and some yarn and a needle to sew everything together

first make a basic pattern on paper (you will use 13 cm/5" for each bottle plus 1cm/o.5" as seam allowance at each outer edge, so in this case: 1cm seam + 2 bottles (2x13cm) + 1cm seam; if you want to make it bigger just add 13cm for each bottle) - I found 17cm/6.75" to be a good depth for the wine rack - in the end my pattern measured 28cm x 17cm - now just transfer the pattern to the felt using the chalk

cut four pieces of felt to the size of your pattern (two pieces of felt for each row of wine bottles) using the cutter and the ruler

mark the middle on every piece of felt and sew two pieces together, repeat until all felt pieces are used up

now mark the middle of the "wine sections" but don't forget to add the seam allowance, I marked at 7.5cm from the outer edge in - sew together to make it look like this:

almost finished: mark the 1cm for the seam at the outer edge of the upper and lower felt pieces and sew together so it will look like the following picture:

the main idea of sewing everything together is to start in the very center of your wine rack to be able to reach every seam without breaking your fingersyou can easily adapt this pattern for wine racks that will hold 6 bottles or even 9 or 12 (3 rows of wine with 3 or 4 bottles)and you don't need to use thick felt if you can't find any (I found mine on ebay) I believe a nice classic fabric that's properly lined can make lovely wine racks as well, it just may take a little longer (it took me about 2 hours to finish my wine rack)

7/19/2011

... I will post a few pictures of knitting, finished knitting to be more precise.

Me? Complaining? I AM NEVER COMPLAINING, I'm the most quiet blog anyone could wish for ..rolls eyes.. although I would LOVE to see knitting pictures, I haven't seen some in a while, those acorns just don't count, really

... anyways, the knitting I'm talking about is my "Chinese Christmas" pulllover I made last year. I finished it just after new years and even got my friend Alex to take pictures, I just never seem to have shown you the finished piece.

unfortunately it felted a little after the first washing in the washing machine, not toooo bad, but the pattern got lost a tad

7/03/2011

|seen| tiger lilies |heard| too many Depeche Mode songs |read| part 2 of "The Legend of the Ice People" books by Margit Sandemo |done| a bike tour at the stormy Baltic Sea |eaten| spaghetti with creamy cauliflower sauce ... yumyum ... and too much licorice |drunk| water |thought| of knitting a new silken cardigan |been pleased| with my tomatoes |got annoyed| by the changing weather |wished| for a storm proof umbrella |bought| a brown summer dress by Esprit |clicked| youtube videos |been astonished| how quiet Bloggy has been the last days

... ha ha ha, me being quiet? you kept writing and I kept reading, although I wonder how the afghan keeps growing ... hugs Bloggy

7/01/2011

with this title you might think I've been on vacation but I just got home from a 3 day workshop in a hotel near the beach, this was our view at the first evening only 2 minutes walk away from the hotel

the rest of the time it was stormy and rainy and you could think we were glad we had to work instead of having a free time at the beach ^__^ nice weekend everyone

ABOUT ME

My name is Diana and I am passionate about crocheting, knitting and pattern designing. I also craft, bake, cook and rant.If you find something that inspires you, please brighten my day by letting me know.And if you find an error in one of my patterns, send me a gentle nudge so that I can fix it.